David Petraeus sex scandal: FBI agent who began probing disgraced spy chief allegedly sent shirtless photos of himself to whistleblower Jill Kelley– David Petraeus’stunning downfall took another salacious turn Monday as it was revealed the FBI agent who began investigating the disgraced spy chief allegedly sent shirtless photos of himself to the woman who sparked the probe.The unnamed agent was a friend of Jill Kelley, the raven-haired knockout whom Petraeus biographer Paula Broadwell jealously suspected of having the hots for the former CIA director, The Wall Street Journal reported.Broadwell bombarded Kelley with anonymous, threatening emails accusing her of having a relationship with the spy chief, with whom she had previously had an extramarital affair. In one email, Broadwell “claimed to have watched Ms. Kelley touching ‘him’ provocatively underneath a table,” according to the paper.The get-away-from-my-man emails so unnerved Kelley that she complained to an FBI pal of hers. But as the investigation gained momentum, the FBI agent who knew Kelley was taken off of the case by superiors who were worried “he might have grown obsessed with the matter,” the paper reported.

And it appeared their concern was justified.

Jerry Brown delivers with Proposition 30– Voters approved Jerry Brown’s $6billion tax hike last week because California has changed and Brown hasn’t. Lots of help from organized labor didn’t hurt.First, give the governor his due. In a state that spawned the tax revolt 34 years ago, Proposition 30’s passage by what could end up being 10 percentage points is an extraordinary turn of events.Issues win and lose for many reasons. In this instance, the right salesman made the right pitch, and the opposition stumbled. The governor and his consultants understood the electorate and gave voters what they wanted.Brown’s message, ultimately, was simple: Government has made cuts. School kids have suffered. A “yes” vote would allow California to begin restoring public education and other services, and bring the budget into balance.

GOP Grapples With Embarrassing Polling Failures– In the weeks before Election Day, both Republicans and Democrats were nervous about their poll numbers. Both sides of the aisle have smart pollsters, they reasoned, so how could the numbers that Democrats were seeing diverge so sharply from the numbers the Republicans were seeing? Deep down, I wrote at the time, both parties secretly worried that their side was missing the boat.Now we know which side needed its polls unskewed. Before Election Day, Republicans confidently predicted they would pick up seats in both chambers of Congress, and that Mitt Romney would win the White House. The results shattered those predictions, and with them any sense of security in the numbers coming out of some of the best-regarded polling firms on the right.”Everyone thought the election was going to be close. How did [Republicans] not know we were going to get our ass kicked?” lamented Rob Jesmer, head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “I don’t understand how we didn’t know. That’s the part that’s most puzzling and frustrating and embarrassing.”The underlying causes of the errant numbers are the assumptions that the pollsters made about the nature of the electorate. Most pollsters believed the electorate would look something like the voters who turned out in 2008, just with slightly lower numbers of African-Americans, younger people, and Hispanics heading to the polls.

But exit polls actually showed a much more diverse electorate than the one forecast. Black turnout stayed consistent with 2008, Hispanic turnout was up, and younger voters made up a higher percentage of the electorate than they had four years ago. White voters made up 72 percent of the electorate, according to the exits, down 2 points from 2008 and a continuation of the two-decade long decline in their share of the electorate.

That meant that even though Mitt Romney scored 59 percent of the white vote — a higher percentage than George W. Bush won in 2000 and 2004, higher than Ronald Reagan in 1980 and matching George H.W. Bush’s 1988 score, when he won 426 electoral votes in 40 states — it wasn’t enough to overcome the 80 percent support that Obama scored among nonwhite voters.

Jindal, Paul call for populist, smart GOP– Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul told Politico in separate interviews Monday that the Republican Party must be the Party of the people, with the aim of increasing freedoms, not the other way around.“We’ve got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything,” Jindal said. “We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.”He asserted the GOP doesn’t have to retreat from the matters of abortion and gay marriage, though he advised them to ease their tone and rhetoric.“It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments — enough of that,” Jindal said. “It’s not going to be the last time anyone says something stupid within our party, but it can’t be tolerated within our party.”

An injection of intelligence and specificity is in order, instead of “dumbed-down conservatism,” he added, urging “the party of ideas, details and intelligent solutions” to end the tactic of “reducing everything to mindless slogans, tag lines, 30-second ads that all begin to sound the same.”

“We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters,” Jindal said.

He added: “Simply being the anti-Obama party didn’t work. You can’t beat something with nothing. The reality is we have to be a party of solutions and not just bumper-sticker slogans but real detailed policy solutions.”

Exit polls skip Texas, missing key demographic data– Everyone is looking for bipartisan agreement in the aftermath of the election, and we’ve found a rare example of it. Sen.-elect Ted Cruz, a Republican, recently said this to the New Yorker about his state of Texas: “If Republicans do not do better in the Hispanic community, in a few short years Republicans will no longer be the majority party in our state.” And President Obama, a Democrat, put it this way at a Texas fundraiser in May: “You’re not considered one of the battleground states, although that’s going to be changing soon.”Unfortunately, the news media evidently don’t agree that big changes are underway in Texas. Ahead of last week’s election, the National Election Pool — which does exit polls for the Associated Press and the news networks — announced it would not be conducting full state-level surveys in 19 states, including Texas.Certainly, there are many states where this money-saving omission makes sense. But by omitting Texas, even while polling in politically settled states like Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, the exit pollsters pre-emptively missed the biggest story of the election — the continued shift of Hispanic voters back toward Democrats since the George W. Bush era.

GOP and Immigration: The Grover Plan: More Cowbell!– We’ll dilute our way out of it! Republicans did poorly among Hispanics last week. How to address that problem? The answer, they’re told by Washington savants, is to back an immigration reform that … increases the number of Hispanics! It’s a plan so crazy it just might be crazy.Joshua Culling, who works for Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, elaborates on the plan elsewhere on this site. It turns out the idea–let’s call it the Grover Plan, just to be annoying–isn’t as wacky as I you might think. It’s wackier.Suppose Republicans conspire with Dems to bring amnesty to the 10 or 11 million unauthorized immigrants who are already here. Eventually they become citizens. Will they be ready to wipe the slate clean and vote Republican? Or will the Dems figure out new ways to gin up their ethnic base at election time? Cullings denies they’ll be able to do that–at least by “promising direct subsidies to immigrants or an expanded welfare state:”

Own It: Comcast’s NBCUniversal unit lays off 500 employees– Comcast Corp’s NBCUniversal entertainment unit is laying off about 500 employees at cable channels, Jay Leno’s late-night TV show and the Universal Pictures movie studio, a person with knowledge of the matter said on Monday.The cuts add up to about 1.5 percent of the company’s workforce of 30,000 employees, the source said.A large portion of the layoffs occurred at the G4 cable channel, a network about video games and the gaming culture, the source said. Two of the network’s shows were recently canceled.

No Meat on Mondays in Los Angeles = Meatless Mondays to Save the Planet– The Los Angeles City Council is urging all residents to observe “meatless Mondays” from now on.A resolution adopted on Oct. 24 reads: “Be it resolved, that the Council of the City of Los Angeles hereby declares all Mondays as ‘Meatless Mondays’ in support of comprehensive sustainability efforts as well as to further encourage residents to eat a more varied plant-based diet to protect their health and protect animals.”Councilwoman Jan Perry, who introduced the resolution, also wants to ban new fast-food restaurants in South Los Angeles.”While this is a symbolic gesture, it is asking people to think about the food choices they make. Eating less meat can reverse some of our nation’s most common illnesses,” press reports quoted Perry as saying.

Sarah Westwood: Advice From a Lonely College Republican– If the election results told us anything, it’s that the GOP has some serious soul searching to do. On paper, Mitt Romney’s history of accomplishment towered over President Obama’s train wreck of a record, so his loss seemed nearly inexplicable. But Mr. Obama carried his key groups so easily that Republicans should give him props for such a feat— and start taking notes.In politics, as in life, perception is key. The Chicago machine and the Democratic National Committee as a whole have perfected the art of marketing, even when they’ve got nothing to sell. They’re like a used-car salesman who pushes lemons on unsuspecting drivers and never gets caught. Democrats can home in on Latinos, blacks, single women, young voters—and have them chanting “Four more years!” before they know what hit them.I happen to be one of the latter, a college student at a time when youth is a hot political commodity. Most kids my age bristle at the word “conservative,” and I don’t blame them. The right has done nothing to welcome young people.If Republicans hope to win in 2016 and beyond, they need to change everything about the way they sell themselves. They’re viewed by the 18-24 set as the “party of the rich” and as social bigots. That harsh, flawed opinion could be rectified if Republicans started presenting their positions in a different way. The GOP is like a supermodel who has been doing photo shoots under fluorescent bulbs without any makeup. But fix the lighting, dab on some foundation and highlight her good side, and she can take the most attractive picture.

The Republican Party’s Candidate Problem in Two Charts– Two days after a wholly disappointing election for the National Republican Senatorial Committee that saw the party not only fail to gain the majority but actually lose seats, a soul-searching of how it happened has begun.The blame, as it often is, has been thrust on the candidates. And, at least in this case, for good reason. After all, Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin essentially gave away seats with their comments on rape and pregnancy.But the trouble for the GOP wasn’t just in Indiana and Missouri.In fact, as the chart below details, Republican Senate candidates under-performed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in most of the important races of 2012.

California’s Liberal Supermajority – Taxpayers are going to get all the government they ever wanted– For Republicans unhappy with Tuesday’s election, we have good news—at least most of you don’t live in California. Not only did Democrats there win voter approval to raise the top tax rate to 13.3%, but they also received a huge surprise—a legislative supermajority. Look out below.The main check on Sacramento excess has been a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds majority of both houses to raise taxes. Although Republicans have been in the minority for four decades, they could impose a modicum of spending restraint by blocking tax increases. If Democratic leads stick in two races where ballots are still being counted, liberals will pick up enough seats to secure a supermajority. Governor Jerry Brown then will be the only chaperone for the Liberals Gone Wild video that is Sacramento.

Romney Failed to Make Sizeable Gains in Swing States – So why did Romney underperform in these swing states? It is hard to say for sure. The Obama team may have utilized more effective television ads. They may also have enjoyed a superior get-out-the-vote operation. There may have been idiosyncratic factors that limited Republican gains in these states. However, there is a good chance that this group of eight states will prove pivotal in future elections. As such, the Republicans party would do well to identify strategies for both mobilizing Republican voters and expanding the Republican base in these states.

Where Obama did better in 2012 than in 2008 (in one map)– President Obama was reelected on Tuesday, but he won by significantly smaller margins across the entire country — except for a handful of places.One of those places just happens to be the Eastern part of New Jersey, which was rocked by Hurricane Sandy a week before the election.Voters up and down the counties along the Jersey Shore and in the New York City area voted for Obama by more than they voted for him in 2008. Obama did better in 2012 in Ocean County, Middlesex County, Union County and Passaic County, along with nearby Richmond County, N.Y. — a.k.a. Staten Island.Here’s the map showing where Obama did better and worse

California Democrats amass control over unruly state – California Becomes a One Party State– Governor Jerry Brown and his Democratic allies on Tuesday won a mandate that might be the envy of President Barack Obama, turning the nation’s bluest state into one in which Democrats will likely have all but complete political control.Voters approved a tax hike championed by Brown and soundly rejected a measure that would have gutted union political power. Perhaps most importantly, if initial vote totals hold in several very close legislative races as the final absentee ballots are counted, they will have handed Democrats supermajority control of both houses of the state legislature for the first time in 79 years.rown, who largely failed to gain cooperation from Republicans over the last two years, now owns the field. He has the opportunity to overhaul the tax code, reform the Byzantine governmental processes that have hobbled Sacramento for decades, and even potentially touch the “third rail” of California politics, the low-property-tax measure known as Proposition 13.”I guess you might say it’s our time,” Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg told a news conference.

The ascendance of Democrats and their union backers may give more than a little pause to businesses and wealthy individuals, who now face higher taxes and the prospect of even more new taxes and regulations.

The state’s top personal income tax rate was already the second highest in the nation at 10.3 percent before Tuesday’s vote, and will now rise to 13.3 percent for the next seven years.

Obamacare Forever? – What Barack Obama’s second term means for the president’s signature health law– Since debate about health care reform began, voters have been consistently wary of the law that has become known as Obamacare; as of today, Pollster.com’s aggregate shows that 47.8 percent of the public opposes the law while just 39.2 percent approve. Yet in voting to give President Barack Obama a second term yesterday, America also implicitly voted to keep the health law that bears his name in place. So is Obamacare here to stay?Yes, at least for now. But big questions still remain. We know we’ll keep Obamacare on the books, at least for the foreseeable future. What we don’t know is whether it will work.That’s because the law still faces huge legal and logistical hurdles. Tops on the list are challenges to the law’s insurance exchanges, starting with a lawsuit filed by Oklahoma’s attorney general. That case, which revolves around legal problems examined in a paper by Case Western Reserve law professor Jonathan Adler and Cato Institute Health Policy Direct Michael Cannon, may decide whether employers in states that do not set up their own health insurance exchanges can be taxed under the law, as well as whether it is legal for the federal government to offer insurance subsidies through exchanges it runs in states that opt out. The law, which taxes employers that don’t offer insurance in order to fund those subsidies, states that subsidies are only available in state-run exchanges.If Oklahoma’s suit prevails, states will have a large incentive to opt out of creating exchanges in order to protect employers from the tax penalty. And the federal exchanges will be largely useless. “No one would go to those exchanges. The whole structure created by the health care reform law starts to fall apart,” Gretchen Young, senior vice president-health policy at the ERISA Industry Committee told Business Insurance.